Create your own slides for a quiz using PowerPoint or PDF. Upload them to this site to be shared via your personal url or link to any website. Create a quiz including a title and end slide. Each question should include four possible choices for an answer with one correct response. Up to 40 questions can be posted. Take the test yourself to identify correct responses; then the quiz is ready to share. Options include quizzes for anonymous users with an "answer until right" format or exam mode where you identify yourself at the start and are given points based on responses. The introduction video is hosted on YouTube. If YouTube is blocked at your school, be sure to view the video at home for more instruction about how to use this site.

In the Classroom

Create quizzes for review before tests. Share the link with students to use at home. Have students create their own PowerPoint quizzes and upload for sharing with other class members. Use as a pre-test at the start of a chapter or unit. Identify misconceptions or basic knowledge to help determine instruction. Identify interests of students at the start of the school year by asking quiz questions. Do the questions as a whole-class activity on your projector or interactive whiteboard with students contributing the portions of knowledge they do know toward solving the question. Using teamwork and thinking aloud can often help the group reach a conclusion that no single member could do alone. Learning support teachers can have small groups create review quizzes as a way of studying without realizing it!

This recording of an OK2Ask online professional development session from July 2013, opens in Adobe Connect. Specialized for Special Needs: Ideas and tools for Learning Support, Speech/language, Emotional Support, and More! Learn how to adapt your teaching for your students' special needs using TeachersFirst resources. Participants will view and explore tools to help students needing emotional support, learning support, speech/language support, autistic support, ESL/ELL assistance, and more. Find resources that promote organization, focus, and differentiated learning. Use exploration time to discover and discuss how selected resources can be utilized in your classroom.

As a result of this session and through individual follow-up, teachers will: Gather ideas by exploring 6 -10 specialized resources on TeachersFirst; Explore and practice with selected resources; Investigate and discuss lesson ideas offered in reviews and by other participants; List and discuss other curriculum related projects or activities that could be done using the resources in the teacher's own teaching situation; and (Follow-up) Implement one of the provided resources into an upcoming teaching unit or lesson. Applicable NETS-T standards (2008)*: 1a, b, c; 2a, b, c, d; 3b, c, d; 4c * The text of these standards is copyrighted. Please read the full text at ISTE's NETS-T page.

In the Classroom

Looking for new strategies to use with your learning support, ESL/ELL students, emotional support, speech/language students, autistic support, and other specialized needs? View this webinar for some excellent new ideas. Invite other teachers to view the webinar with you in your class or the computer lab. Take a look at the resource page full of GREAT ideas! Learn more about OK2Ask and upcoming sessions here.

Newsela is a data base of current events stories tailor-made for classroom use. Indexed by broad theme (e.g. War and Peace, Arts, Science, Health, Law, Money), stories are both student-friendly and can be accessed in different formats by reading level. Use Newsela to differentiate nonfiction reading. Newspaper writers rewrite a story four times for a total of five Lexile levels per story. Many stories also have embedded, Common Core aligned quizzes that conform to the reading levels for checking comprehension. In addtion, each article has a writing prompt which is also designed to assess reading comprehension. An account is required to use Newsela, both for teachers and for students, but students sign up using a teacher or parent provided code rather than an email address. Teachers can create classes and assign reading-level specific articles to individual students, or download printable PDF copies of the article in any of its reading-level versions. There is an upgraded fee-based Pro Version which allows teachers or administrators to track reading progress, but most of the features are free and there is no advertising.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Achieve two goals here: help students improve their reading comprehension and keep them current with what is happening in our nation and the world. When assigning articles, choose to have the class read at one reading level, or choose individuals and set the reading level for them. There are five categories from which to choose. You may want to set up different articles at different learning stations on the computers in your room. Have the students rotate daily through the stations, completing one or two a day until they have completed all five articles. Since Newsela is cloud based, even absent students can complete the missed work easily. Teachers of gifted students can use this site to accelerate or enrich reading for students. Find each students individual levels for reading nonfiction. Teachers of Learning Support and ELL students will love this alternate way for their students to meet current events requirements.

Comments

This is an excellent site and allows differentiation while everyone is reading the same text.Renee, NC, Grades: 0 - 5

750 Words is a private place to write your thoughts, clear your head, scrawl a rant, or brainstorm ideas. You might ask yourself, why not just blog? Blogs have a "keep private" button, and if you forget to click it who knows who will be reading your most private thoughts. This program is based on the idea that getting your thoughts on (digital) paper every morning can clear your head, focus your ideas, and organize and energize you for the rest of the day. Inspired by the book The Artist's Way, and its hand-written "Morning Pages" exercise, the creator of this program converted that exercise to our 21st century tools. If you care about such things, there is also a point system where one can compare constancy of writing and words written with others.

In the Classroom

To write daily is a good idea for students. It helps them clarify their thoughts and questions, and get in touch with their feelings. 750 Words would be perfect for any writing program or with gifted students who often feel very strongly about fairness and/or world issues well beyond their years. Students can get their thoughts and ideas written down without having to worry about a grade or someone chancing upon their writings in a school notebook. Here's an idea for any grade level. Have your students do free writes (stream of conscientiousness writing) starting with 5 minutes or more a day. Ask students to count their words daily when time is up, always trying to increase the word count. After a couple of weeks have them use 750 Words and complete the stream of writing on a computer or mobile device. (This shouldn't slow many of them down since most are quick at texting!). After the first day, and again after the second week, using 750 Words have a class discussion about which format they like better and why. Use a backchannel program like Meetings.io reviewed here, or Today's Meet, reviewed here, for the class discussion. Using one of these programs ensures that even your shy students have a chance to say what they think about 750 Words. Challenge your students to complete the 750 words at home. They can earn points, and you know how competition can inspire some of them! Resource students and ESL/ELL students could increase their writing skills and fluency by keeping an online, private journal daily with 750 Words. Emotional support, autistic support, or alternative ed students may find this private space to work out feelings very therapeutic.

The Question Generator does just what its title says. Click on the "spin" button and question starters will appear for both closed and open ended questions. Closed questions are valuable for acquiring background information on a topic. Open ended questions are valuable for research and discussions. Find it easy to create both at the Question Generator! View the introduction video to learn more about using this tool.

In the Classroom

Use the Question Generator along with any fiction or nonfiction reading to help your students think more deeply. Use as a starting point in research projects. With the Common Core State Standards and their focus on close reading, rigor, and critical thinking, this is the perfect tool to use to make sure you are challenging your students. Introduce students to this tool when they need to create essential questions for their research, or when developing questions for their literature circle group. Learning support students can gain practice thinking beyond the "facts" by creating and talking through their own questions. Before you start, generate a list of key words from the unit: terms such as arachnids or homeostasis or names of historic figures, so they can then insert the terms into the question starters from the generator. Your interactive whiteboard or projector would be an ideal place to generate some questions together before turning students loose to generate some of their own. Be sure to record/save the list of questions you create on a class wiki or blog-- or even on old fashioned butcher paper as students go off to resolve them. Revisit the questions late in the unit to see which are still unresolved. Ask the class which question would make the best essay question on the final "test." Maybe allow them to choose their own? In world language classes, these simple questions could lead to practice with dialog.

Data drives instruction. Managing data drives you crazy. This free tool will assess students, manage data, and analyze results to make your instruction better. Easily create rubrics. Describe your indicators and include standards. Find rubrics in the library to copy and make your own. Print rubrics, save as a PDF, or download as a spreadsheet. Share your rubrics in the library for others to access. Does breaking down data make you break down? Analyze assessment results by individual students, class, item analysis, or standards. Email students and their families the results or download rubrics to print. Add comments to rubrics for qualitative analysis. Award badges (stickers) to reward students and provide positive feedback. An accompanying, free iPad app allows you to collect data on the fly and add it to your account. The demonstration video requires Flash, the remainder of the site does not.

In the Classroom

Use the data provided to analyze students to differentiate instruction. Provide students and families the opportunity to view data online. Motivate students to learn by awarding badges. Students can analyze their own data to monitor progress. Use the data for progress reports and parent/teacher conferences. Use the data provided to analyze your instruction to make sure standards are being met and instruction is tailored for students' individual needs.

Find ready-to-go lessons and materials for 1st and 2nd grades to meet many of the Common Core standards. Many of the materials could also be useful with students in grades 3-5. Begin by choosing from topics such as Reading, Math, Classroom Management, or Seasonal. Within each topic find a list of lessons or activities. Look under Classroom Management to find a link to Common Core "I Can" printables, reading logs, and checklists for grades K-5. Choose from different subjects for each checklist along with the option of borderless design or clip art poster. Don't let the juvenile look of this site or the abundance of advertising fool you. There are a lot of wonderful resources to be found with just a little bit of searching!This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Bookmark and save this site as a lesson resource throughout the year. This is a great site to peruse over the summer or use for back to school planning. Use this site to learn more about Common Core. Print the "I Can" checklists for use in student folders as part of your yearly assessment. Send a copy home to parents so that they see the yearly standards and goals for each subject.

Find hundreds of ideas for using the visual resources of film, animation, photographs and picture books for teaching literacy. Each "shed" has a theme: The Mystery Shed, The Video Game Shed, The Fantasy Shed, The Myths Shed, The Picture Book Shed, and at least 25 more. Each "shed" has images and videos along with suggestions for using them. The activities and materials will appeal to many age groups from primary to college age. The Literacy Shed also features a resource a week and a blog entry for the week. This site is free, but donations are accepted. The Resource Shed features lesson plans and worksheets from others to go along with the animations. Only the videos use Flash. At the time of this review, all advertising was related to educational sites and activities.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

The Literacy shed is full of ideas for writing, creating, and improving your student's critical thinking skills. There are lesson plans with explicit instructions for writing. The high quality resources found here can be used as "stand alone" lessons or can be an introduction to a unit. Look to see if there is one to support a unit you already use. Here is an idea: after viewing one of your favorite picture books via video, and completing some of the suggested activities, have students bring in their favorite picture book and create activities similar to those found on The Literacy Shed. They could also create a video either with pictures from the book or by creating their own pictures and narrating the story. Be sure students use proper citation if posting them on TeacherTube, reviewed here, or another online program. Not finding your favorite book on The Literacy Shed? See if you can find a YouTube or Vimeo video and create your own lesson from a model at The Literacy Shed.

Find downloadable worksheets correlated to Common Core curriculum. Visit the math link for practice with all operations and many topic areas (balancing equations, many forms of graphs, fractions, grids, lines, line plots, geometry, measurement, money, negative numbers, time, and SO much more)! In social studies find worksheets on geography, primary and secondary sources, and timelines. Language arts includes parts of speech and sentence types. Under each subject choose easy, medium, or hard worksheets. In Create a Review, choose your topic area and create your own worksheet. Also included are brain teasers, bingo games, and multiplication mazes.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Find worksheets for every subject to better prepare your students for Common Core standards and testing. Use the sheets to make a formative or even summative assessment for many different topics in math. Use as a review or even practice. Provide this link on your class website for students (and parents) to find extra practice. Printable answer keys come with the worksheets. Allow students to create their own quizzes. Easy to use, grade, and share. Use for gifted students needing some acceleration. Use for extra practice with students struggling with new concepts.

OCD Education Station provides resources and information for helping those with OCD. Learn about OCD facts with a primer for educators that includes recognizing symptoms and challenges to student performance. Find helpful information on managing OCD in the classroom as well as tips for communicating with parents. Choose the tools and resources link to access several printable guides available in English and Spanish for parents, teens, and school personnel.

Games to Learn English is a collection of games for ESL/ELL students or any student learning the basics of English and/or reading. Created for students of English language learners, the many activities focus on developing vocabulary, comprehension, grammar, word order, and spelling skills. Choose from interactives such as Fast Hands and Concentration to begin. Each activity includes directions for play and scoring explanations, and most have playing speed options.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Although created for English language learners, this is an excellent site to develop vocabulary (and computer skills) for younger students. It also helps with speech/language vocabulary development and grammar reinforcement for special ed. Share this site on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Complete the activities as a class with a student operating the board. Create a link on classroom computers and challenge students to increase their speed in completing games.

FindIcons.com is a search tool that helps you find free icons. Type your term in the search bar to view icons in FindIcons database. Choose from several different options to download icons in the file format desired, such as png. Convert to jpg, bmp, or several other file options. Each icon includes licensing information so you can look for icons that are Creative Commons or public domain. Create an account then make user sets of your favorite icons. Access your user sets from anywhere through the FindIcons website. Explore the TAGS button to find search ideas. Be aware: ANY word/term can be searched, some may not be appropriate for the classroom. If you plan to allow young people to use this site independently, be sure to discuss appropriate searching.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Bookmark this site as a resource for finding and saving icons to use on your website, or to include with class projects. Share this site with students to find icons for projects. If you make a whole-class account, you can create user sets in advance of projects to save time. In primary grades, these icons are terrific for teacher use! Use icons to create non-verbal signs for your non-readers in your classroom. Special education, world language, and ELL/ESL teachers can create non-verbal prompts for language learning. Use icons on your interactive whiteboard as drag and drop or labeling activities to build vocabulary and more.

Flex your photo creativity with this free tool. Transform images with scrapbook-like effects and embellishments. Begin with basic effects like cropping and contrasting. Add text, draw on the photo, and add animated effects to flex your photo editing muscles. The tool is integrated with Facebook and most photosharing sites. You can also upload photos from your computer. Resave photos back to your computer, share online, or store in FotoFlexer. Flex your photos without an account or create an account to store them in FotoFlexer. Only the demonstrations require FLASH.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Stretch your students' creativity with these fun photo effects. Type sentences or definitions on photos that represent vocabulary words. Highlight geometric shapes in photos with the drawing tool to show math in everyday life or around the world. Integrate images in multimedia products. Narrate images with UtellStory (reviewed here) or other digital storytelling tools. Use the text tool to draw information on maps. Upload images from science labs for students to annotate their experiment. Upload images of student artwork and have students annotate to explain their techniques. In world languages, add the vocabulary word for actions or objects to create a picture dictionary. Enhance pictures for blogs, wikis, or classroom sites. Be sure to check district policy before using student pictures. Annotate photos for visual directions for assignments. If using pictures from the Internet, be sure to discuss copyright issues and approve pictures for student use. To find Creative Commons images for student projects (with credit, of course), try Compfight, reviewed here, Wikimedia Commons, reviewed here, or PhotoPin, reviewed here.

ESL Discussions is a resource of over 600 discussion questions. They could be used in ESL/ELL lessons, speaking practice, debate clubs, and as needed for any speaking activities. Categorized alphabetically, topics include everyday themes such as donuts as well as more controversial topics such as marijuana. Teachers working with K-12 students will want to select the questions rather than sending students to the site since there are also some very sensitive topics. Choose a topic to view two sets of questions to spark conversations: one for student A and another for student B. Choose the link to print questions in either Word or PDF. Although this site has a lot of advertisements, there are some very interesting topics to discuss/share.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Bookmark this site to use anytime you want to develop and promote discussion skills in your classroom. After students have completed their discussion questions, have them present their findings to the class then create a quick poll (with no membership required) using kwiqpoll (reviewed here). Share with ESL/ELL and Special Education teachers as a resource for promoting discussion and speaking skills with their students. Use this site for teacher-selected topics in debate club, speech class, and more. Some of the topics could even make good blog prompts.

Take a look at this easy-to-use picture dictionary. Click on terms to come up with photographs of many aspects of any word. On the opening page, lists of items to look up are in phrases or groups of vocabulary. Also on the opening page, find the most viewed items under the tab Popular Today. Search by item, category, or alphabetical order.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

To familiarize your class with this resource, use your interactive whiteboard to show the group what the different lists of items contain, or have small groups of students investigate different lists and report out to their classmates what their item is all about. Put this on your classroom computers for beginning level, SPED, and ELL students.

Test your Dolch sight word reading speed with this interactive! You can play in a public game with unknown competitors or a private game. To start, select your own kitten color. The site allows competitors on up to 4 computers to play at the same time. You will hear a word from the Dolch sight word reading list. Click on it as quickly as possible. Your kitten will jump to the correct ball of yarn. The faster you respond, the quicker your kitten jumps from ball to ball. This interactive measures each player's reading speed as well as pits them against the other players whose kittens appear on the board. This site is helpful for any beginning readers including ELL/ESL students and learning support students.

In the Classroom

Even if your students have been reading basic sight words for a while, this site offers practice in speed and fluency. You could create a learning center out of this site and have four different students competing on laptops. If you only have one computer and an interactive whiteboard, set up a learning station! Students can work in groups of two or individually to see their speed. If you choose to have students work in partners, be sure to partner each child with a student of similar reading level, so one student isn't providing all of the answers. This is a great simple site to provide for summer practice of sight words.

This American Presidents website contains lesson plans for teaching about each of the US presidents all the way through Barack Obama. The site uses the informational text about each president to teach, reinforce, and review English language concepts. The site is directly geared toward ESL/ELL students. However, all users will benefit from materials provided. Choose any president to view a short biography. There are also language lessons such as fill in the blank and writing activities. Choose from links at the top of the page to print the lesson in PDF format, hear the article read in mp3 format, and view additional activities such as flash cards and word jumbles. Although heavy in advertising, this site is worth a look as a resource for activities and lessons about US presidents.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Bookmark and save this site as a resource to accompany US presidents units or to supplement current materials used in teaching about the presidents. This is a great tool to use in English/language arts class for nonfiction readings. If you want to remove distracting advertisements, use a tool such as Readability (reviewed here). Print activities and biographies about several different presidents to add to your substitute folder. Share this site with ESL/ELL and Special Education teachers as a resource for materials.

ESL Reader provides instant reading help for English language learners. Use it to improve reading time and reading skills. Simply copy/paste or type text into the box and click. Each word becomes a link to a dictionary, thesaurus, or other reference including Wikipedia. Numerous dictionaries and references are available. Select the dictionary or other reference work and click. The site also translates the selected text into a variety of languages, but use caution with online translators! They often scramble meaning and syntax.This site includes advertising.

Discover a wealth of writing ideas at this expansive site, including "Common Core friendly" ones! Sign up for the monthly newsletter to get a new writing idea each month. This Ning site has several groups to join, depending on your interests. If the group you're looking for doesn't exist, create one. At the time of this review, the current month's writing lesson is at the top of the home page. The menu across the top provides access to past writing lessons. This site mentions the Six Traits of Writing, and each month focuses on a different trait. A picture book that also focuses on the writing trait is part of the lesson plan.

In the Classroom

Find ideas for your students to write about. Or better yet, show them the categories, lists, and ideas and have them choose something as a class. Create small groups and allow them to look through the past writing lessons and books and decide as a group what they would like to write about. Use a program such as MixedInk reviewed here or allwritewithme reviewed here to help them collaborate on their writing experience. The site uses the Six Traits of Writing, and each month focuses on a different trait. To learn more about the Six Traits of writing visit Six Traits of Writing reviewed here or 6+1 Trait Writing Lesson Plans reviewed here.

Whip up a batch of Bingo cards in no time with Bingo Baker! Give your card a title and start typing words into the Bingo grid, change Bingo column headings if desired. Use the option to leave the center space free or not by checking the box at the bottom of the page. When finished, click Generate to produce your cards. The free option is limited to printing 8 cards at a time. This may work best for centers and small group work instead of whole class activities.

In the Classroom

Use Bingo Baker to create Bingo games to review any topic with small groups. Instead of telling the word that is on the Bingo card give the definition (so students must find the term) or a math problem whose answer is among those on the card. Create sight word bingo cards for younger students. This is a great review tool for science or social studies. Put a short description of a vocabulary word into the space. Tell students the name of the vocabulary word and see if they can find it on the Bingo card. Or do the reverse and write the vocabulary word on the card and read the definition to the class. Encourage students to create bingo games for each other as review or to engage the audience during oral presentations. Learning support teachers can create them together with students as an engaging way to review. World language teachers (and students) can create bingo cards to reinforce vocabulary.